Posts Tagged ‘dispute’

A Muslim couple in Manchester, England, allegedly purchased items for homemade bombs to be used against Jewish targets, a court in that city was told.

“It was jihad at home,” prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told the Manchester crown court on Thursday, according to the Guardian. “Between them they acquired substances, common for gardening, that can be purchased in supermarkets, as well as equipment and information that would help them to make explosives, and began the process of assembling an improvised explosive device.”

In addition, the couple took “multiple reconnaissance” trips to Jewish neighborhoods, according to the Guardian.

British citizens Mohammed Sajid Khan, 33, and his wife, Shasta, 38, allegedly were inspired by al-Qaida propaganda on the Internet, the court was told, the newspaper reported.

The couple’s alleged intentions were discovered when a police officer was called to their home during a domestic dispute. “She took it as an opportunity to spill the beans about the activities Sajid Khan had been undertaking,” Cheema reportedly said.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has reportedly decided to remove five buildings from the Uplana neighborhood in Beit El. He intends to completely uproot the buildings and resituate them on nearby land owned by the military. As a form of compensation, he plans to build tens of new homes in Beit El, ten for each one removed.

Several people have decided to go on a hunger-strike to protest the decision and demand that Ministers vote for the “Regulation Law”, which will set a statute of limitation for claims against existing communities in Judea and Samaria that are allegedly constructed on privately owned land. According to the suggested law, should the claims be proven in court, the buildings would remain in place, and the claimant would receive monetary compensation or land of equal value. The strikers are rejecting Netanyahu’s seemingly generous offer.

Dvir Raz, 31, a father of 3, has been on a hunger strike for five consecutive days, since Wednesday morning. He intends to continue his strike at least until this coming Wednesday, when the vote for the “Regulation Law” will take place. He lives in Amona, a community with similar legal issues. He explained that he is striking with a demand that the Prime Minister find a proper legislative solution to all the lands in legal dispute and which may encounter similar difficulties to those which have arisen at the Ulpana neighborhood.

“The Prime Minister is currently offering a specific solution to this current crisis. We demand that he offer an all encompassing solution to all lands which may be in dispute. We demand that the Prime Minister offer a comprehensive resolution in order to stop the flood of court claims against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The organizations submitting these court petitions are doing so not out of care for the alleged Palestinian owners who have never lived on these lands, but because they are bent on the destruction of as many Jewish settlements as possible. The Ministry of Defense has already announced that they will not enable the alleged owners of the Beit El land to live on it because it is within the limits of Beit El. What we have here is an absurd situation in which everyone loses. This is destruction for the sake of destruction”, Raz stated.

Four more strikers joined the protesters this morning, including a ninety year old man, Avraham Nocham, of Anatot. Nocham, an artist, explained that he has decided to join the strike out of empathy and identification with the strikers’ objectives. “I am very sensitive to these issues,” he told Tazpit News Agency. “Many times the development of these incidents is frightening. I have come to join the struggle and strike in hope of a positive outcome.”

PA officials On Sunday night rejected the new Israeli proposal to resume direct peace talks, arguing that the letter was delivered from the Netanyahu government is lacking regarding already existing Palestinian demands.

Netanyahu’s envoy to the negotiations with the Palestinians, Attorney Yitzhak Molcho, on Saturday night delivered a letter to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, with detailed Israeli positions regarding the resumption of talks. On Sunday Abbas presented the contents of the letter to the PLO Executive Committee.

And Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the PA Executive Committee, said the letter “spoke of a Jewish state alongside a viable Palestinians state,” but made no reference at all to halting construction in the settlements or returning to the 1967 lines, and repeated Netanyahu’s position that the talks should be resumed without any preconditions.

Netanyahu insists that all the issues on which there is a dispute between the parties must be resolved in negotiations.

An official statement issued by the executive committee stated that the letter “does not have clear answers about the core issues challenging the renewal of the peace process”.

Mahmoud Abbas is expected to consult with Arab leaders in the coming days in order to formulate an official response to the Israeli letter.

Israeli children playing in the Ulpana Hill neighborhood of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. The Israeli government is looking for ways to sidestep a ruling by the Supreme Court to demolish Ulpana before July 1, following a land ownership dispute between Arab sellers more than a decade ago. The proclivity of Israel’s leftist legal system to inflict harm on the Jewish settlement movement may have reached a point here where the vast majority of Jews on either side of the green line would reject it.

The Supreme Court on Sunday ruled that the buildings of Givat HaUlpana in Beit El targeted for destruction because of an ownership dispute would receive a 60 day reprieve.

Located in the mountains of the Benjamin tribal region in southern Samaria, the Ulpana buildings were ordered destroyed by the Supreme Court in May, after the extreme anti-Jewish settlement group Yesh Din filed a lawsuit claiming the property had been built on Palestinian land.

Though the court demanded that the residential apartments be razed, the question of who actually owns the land has yet to be resolved in court. Parties in Beit El have appealed to the lower court, arguing that they own the land, having bought it outright from Palestinians.

Justices Edna Arbel, Asher Grunis, and Yoram Danziger granted the stay, giving 60 days to find an alternative solution, rather than the 90 days initially requested by the government.

Approximately 550,000 Israelis live in Judea, Samaria, and the eastern part of Jerusalem.

Egypt’s International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga said on Monday that Egypt is prepared to resume gas exports to Israel, but at new rates, after unilaterally canceling its previous, long-term contract, signed in 2005.

The official MENA news agency reported that Egypt had no objections to signing a new contract, with new conditions.

Abul Naga said Israel had been told five times prior to the cancellation of the contract that it was not living up to its obligations.

This is a diversion from an earlier statement by Egypt’s electricity and fuel minister Hassan Yunis, who said originally that the natural gas being diverted from Israel was going to be used domestically.

“The gas that used to be exported to Israel will be directed to Egyptian electricity plants, as we have more right to it,” Yunis told reporters.

The Israeli side of the dispute had kept its cool since the original Egyptian announcement, maintaining that there was a businesslike solution to the crisis.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday that he was hoping the dispute would be solved in a business environment, and that relations between the two countries would return to normal.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israel Bonds leaders on Monday that he did not “see this gas cutoff as something that is born out of political developments. This is actually a business dispute between the Israeli company and the Egyptian company.”

Netanyahu also promised on Monday that the Jewish state possesses “gas reserves that will make Israel totally energy independent, not only from Egypt, but from any other source, and which will turn Israel into one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas. So we are quite confident on that score.”

Despite major concerns being raised about the future of peace between Egypt and Israel in the wake of Egypt’s decision to terminate the a contract to provide natural gas to the Jewish State, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that he hopes the dispute will be solved in a business environment, and that relations between the two countries will return to normal.

“We want to believe this is a commercial dispute, and not a political one,” Lieberman told Army Radio on Monday. “The peace agreement is important to Israel, and no less so to Egypt.”

On Sunday, Egypt announced that it would no longer provide natural gas to Israel, a $2.5 billion, 15 year arrangement made between Israel and then-president Hosni Mubarak in June 2005, but predated and bolstered by the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which stipulates that the countries will trade normally for products such as oil.

Egyptian officials say the decision to stop supplying gas to Israel was a commercial one and that Israel has not paid for gas Egypt has been sending. Israeli officials say Israel was up to date in payments, and paying a fair price for the product. “EMG (East Mediterranean Gas) considers the termination attempt unlawful and in bad faith,” said Ampal-American Israel Corp., which owns 12.5 percent of East Mediterranean Gas .

The provision of gas by Egypt to Israel has been mired in controversy and difficulties, with Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic party representatives decrying the agreement, and the pipeline between the countries being bombed 14 times in Sinai since the Arab Spring took hold of Egypt in January 2011. The latest attack was on April 8. Ampal has been in international arbitration to get compensation for the supply shortages it has suffered due to the attacks.

Though Israel has continued to function normally despite the frequent gas disruptions and the current halt in supply, electricity prices have risen significantly since the pipeline attacks began, and the possibility of periodic blackouts during the summer has risen. Prior to the attacks, 40% of Israeli electricity needs were being met by Egyptian gas.

The failure of the natural gas deal was viewed ominously by Israeli leaders on Sunday night, with the Finance Ministry calling Egypt’s actions “a dangerous precedent that casts clouds over the peace agreements and the atmosphere of peace between Egypt and Israel.”

Minister of Energy and Water Dr. Uzi Landau said that he instructed officials already two years ago to prepare for a halt in gas imports from Egypt.

Dr. Landau has spent the last few years in office preparing the country for energy independence, which is proving an even more vital strategy due to yesterday’s announcement in Egypt.